Ampelopteris prolifera (Retz.) Copel.

prolifera: bearing plantlets; this plant produces adventituous shoots from the lamina.

Rhizome long creeping, up to 10 mm in diameter; rhizome scales black, triangular, entire. Fronds closely spaced, arching, proliferous at intervals along the rhachis, thinly coriaceous. Stipe up to 40 cm long, pale brown, hairless. Lamina up to 1 × 0.26 m, lanceolate in outline, pinnate, apex of indefinite growth, lower 3-4 pairs of pinnae gradually reduced in size. Pinnae narrowly oblong, shortly petiolate to sessile, base truncate, often with the basal acroscopic lobe overlapping the rhachis, margin shallowly incised into lobes with 5-7 pairs of veins anastomosing below the shallow sinus; undersurface sparsely set with minute hairs, upper surface hairless. Rhachis pale brown, hairless. Sori round to elongated, situated along the veins, with paraphyses; exindusiate.

Southern Africa extending to central and tropical Africa, throughout the tropics of the old world, also Madagascar and Mauritius.